Bastard!! Ankoku no Hakaishin (ONA)

Fifteen years ago, Dark Schneider, a ruthless magician of immeasurable power, sought to conquer the world with an army led by his generals, the Four Divine Kings. However, he was defeated and sealed in the body of a newborn boy.

In the present day, the disbanded party of Dark Schneider has reformed with a macabre goal: to resurrect Anthrasax—the god of destruction that nearly annihilated the world four centuries ago—and establish a war-free society. To do so, the Four Divine Kings must break four seals located in four different kingdoms.

Targeted for its seal, the kingdom of Metallicana struggles to repel the army commanded by the Four Divine Kings. With hope dwindling, all eyes turn to the daughter of Metallicana's Grand Priest, Yoko Tia Noto. Not only is she aware that her adopted younger brother, Lucien Renlen, is Dark Schneider's prison of flesh, but she also knows the ritual to break the seal. Left with no other choice, Yoko successfully releases Dark Schneider, whose twisted personality has not changed over the years. As the fate of the world depends on where his allegiance lies, Yoko seems to be the only person who has some control over the powerful magician. But convincing Dark Schneider to turn against his old allies and protect those Yoko holds dear may prove to be an impossible feat.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Dark Schneider Main

Taniyama, Kishou Japanese

Tia Noto, Yoko Main

Kusunoki, Tomori Japanese

Arshes, Nei Supporting

Hikasa, Youko Japanese

Gara Supporting

Yasumoto, Hiroki Japanese

Metallicana, Sheila Tuel Supporting

Touyama, Nao Japanese

Kai, Harn Supporting

Itou, Shizuka Japanese

Kall-Su Supporting

Ono, Kensho Japanese

Di-amon Supporting

Koyasu, Takehito Japanese

Abigail Supporting

Sugita, Tomokazu Japanese

Metallicana, Lars Ulu Supporting

Matsuoka, Yoshitsugu Japanese

Sasaki, Yuusuke Producer

Tsuruoka, Shinya Producer

Hayashi, Toshiyasu Producer

Miyagi, Souji Producer

Reviews

Sep 25, 2023

Rydawg04

Recommended

Informative

I love this show

It's basically if you take 80's metal album covers and gave them a story full of lewdness, violence, and a main character that solos every verse with gigchad energy alone

As a metal head and anime fan this anime is 10 out of 10 Dark Schneider is what the red pill guy think they are but they will never be anywhere near the level of Chad energy that is Dark Schneider and the opening is the greatest anime opening of recent memory

The story is bat shit insane if you like the metal life style you'll enjoy this

The art and animation are great ... too

The show is call Bastard heavy metal Dark fantasy the Dark fantasy part feels like it could be replaced with just fantasy and make more sense the show can be Dark but the comedy and fan service keep me from saying it's a true Dark fantasy

This show is for you if you like: If you like metal, If you like lewdness, If you like violence, If you like old school DnD.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Aug 17, 2024

enriquelirac

Mixed Feelings

Ambition, that’s the word I would use to describe the Bastard project.

And this anime comes with good animation, a promising story, and good characters. Definitely a project for several seasons.

However, something doesn’t go well. It’s as if the author knows they want to tell a great story… but doesn’t know how. The plot develops without any real climax. The protagonist, Dark Schneider, doesn’t need to do much to solve mysteries. Although he starts a journey at the beginning, in the end, all the villains come to him one by one.

This leaves a very bad taste. Each episode is just about seeing a stronger villain than ... the last, when the previous one was supposed to be the most powerful.

The repetition of this formula ends up being boring.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying it was a bad anime. It just falls short compared to the great ambition that was evident in the project.

THE GOOD: It’s an original story.

THE BAD: Although it starts well, at some point it enters a cyclical phase that lowers all the initial excitement.

STILL, I love the personality of the great Dark Schneider. It was the best part of the anime

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jul 1, 2024

AJ2814

Not Recommended

The bastard offspring of Fist of the North Star, 80's American Metal and He-Man, Bastard has staggeringly little identity of its own.
The show (and I assume the manga as well) understands its audience perfectly. Teenage boys who want a powerful bad ass lead, with a harem of indistinguishable women. Dark Schneider is left blank enough so that the teens can project onto him and have a good time. He's a very effective Mary Sue with his endless dark magic powers that make him the most arbitrarily powerful sorcerer in a world where the magic system amounts to little more than laser blasts with a ... metal reference used as their invocation.
So it's bland and a bit repetitive, but what aspects of the show made it that way?

Story:
The world ended four hundred years ago, magical kingdoms sprung up and an evil cabal of wizards intend to conquer the world using the power that ended the old world. Insert Dark Schneider, our reluctant hero, have him fight the lieutenants and generals of this dark cabal one after the other, and voila you have the entire story of Bastard. There are few surprises along the way, and little foreshadowing of future events. This story format is very indicative of Bastard's origins as a weekly series, with little time in the original production being allocated to filling out the story. While this can make an interesting read week to week, when stories like this are adapted to other mediums later, the issues in their story structure become readily apparent when there isn't a week gap between chapters. Each episode feels identical to the last, and as a result characters start to blend together and their conflicts lose impact. By episode three or so the formula has been established, and just repeats ad nausea, becoming progressively more dull.

Characters:
Dark Schneider: A typical shonen jump edgy boy mary sue. He's an effective audience surrogate with little in the way of characterization other then some basic Shonen tropes. He's selfish, self aggrandizing and horny, overall a perfect reflection of a fourteen year old boy.

Yoko: The main harem girl. The joke is that she's horny for dark Schneider, but won't admit it to him. That's it, that's all she's got, and they do the tsundere joke every second episode.

Arshes: The secondary harem girl. Dark Schneider's old main love interest frkn his previous life. She's a half dark elf whom Dark Schneider adopted and raised, becoming her lover......... Ewww.....

Arshes' Generals: Two of them are girls who are quickly added to the harem after being defeated. I cannot tell them apart and it doesn't matter. The third is Dio. He's the best part of the show.

Beyond that, nond of the characters really matter much. Garra, Abigail and the other one are all standard mustache twirling one dimensional villains. They're all fine, but are not particularly memorable.

Animation:
This show is going for a Fraz Frazetta style, with the colour palette of the 80's He-Man cartoon. And overall it's fairly effective in evoking these influences. However the show is held back by two key issues, it's overall budget and its digital colouring. The show is cheap, with an overall reliance on static frames used to pad the run time, which results in a lot of fights boiling down to two opponents standing roughly twenty feet apart, yelling their spells while light effects are dumped on screen to give the illusion of animation. This issue, along with the uninspired digital colouring which leaves every shot looking flat and sterile, ensures that show looks drab and unenergetic compared to its influences.

World building:
The magic system is barely explained. It's mostly just spoken spells, some of which only specific characters can use, like Dark Schneiders Venom spell, but the limitations of these spells aren't explained. How magic and monsters came into the world after the attack of the God of destruction four hundred years ago is also not explored in any great detail, with orcs, goblins and etc existing solely for the narrative purpose of having cannon fodder to be mowed down by Dark Schneider with little consequence.


Was Bastard worth it in the end? It's definitely a product of its time (derogatory), but it lacks any real identity of its own that makes it stand out compared Yu Yu Hakusho, Dragonball, JoJo or any other title in Shonen Jump around the same time. It was alright background noise to have on while I was assembling furniture, but it's definitely not good enough to warrant sitting down and focusing solely on it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Bastard!! Ankoku no Hakaishin (ONA) Episode 13 Discussion ( 1 2 ) AcceleratorAngel - Jun 30, 2022	63 replies	by Legend1459 »» Sep 22, 4:18 AM
	Poll: Bastard!! Ankoku no Hakaishin (ONA) Episode 10 Discussion MegamiRem - Jul 1, 2022	10 replies	by Ba-Cii10 »» Jul 18, 5:04 PM
	Poll: Bastard!! Ankoku no Hakaishin (ONA) Episode 7 Discussion Illyricus - Jun 30, 2022	18 replies	by Ba-Cii10 »» Jul 18, 3:14 AM
	Poll: Bastard!! Ankoku no Hakaishin (ONA) Episode 2 Discussion Mapachecool999 - Jun 30, 2022	23 replies	by Ba-Cii10 »» Jul 17, 4:03 PM
	Poll: Bastard!! Ankoku no Hakaishin (ONA) Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 ) AcceleratorAngel - Jun 30, 2022	55 replies	by Ba-Cii10 »» Jul 17, 3:59 PM